Robe BMFL Spots blasted stunning, crisp, clear images of Australian broadcaster 7
News’ logo from 300 metres away, positioned near the top of the southern
hemisphere’s highest building, Q1.
The four 24 metre wide gobo images seared into the sand of the beach at Surfers
Paradise right below the 322 metre high Q1… for the launch of the new 7 Gold
Coast News operation.
The ingenious optical stunt was one of a number of high impact logo activations
created for the event by lighting designer Adam Volz of TLD Services.
Collaborating with Pete Coorey from Select Audio-Visual Hire in Brisbane on the
project, Volz knew he needed a seriously bright stadium lighting instrument.
Having used BMFLs for numerous shows in many venues and scenarios, he hoped
that for this application, the luminaire would exceed his expectations … and push
every single lumen of light out of that intense 1700W output!
The next challenge was to find a location for the four BMFLs. Volz suggested one of
Q1’s penthouse apartments just below its famous observation deck … to which the
occupants and building managers agreed.
The master bedroom proved to have the optimum line-of-site to the beach and tests
the previous night revealed that the target area of beach available below for the
logos to be projected spanned over 100 metres right in front of the Q1 … which was
perfect.
BMFL gobos are normally 30.8 mm in diameter with an image area of around
25mm, but with the throw at the minimum zoom of 5 degrees this would be way too
big, so he and the team at Gobotech on the Gold Coast realised that a custom gobo
would be required. This gave a print area of 6 mm reducing the overall size of the
projection.
The fixtures were programmed and controlled locally in the penthouse by Volz. A
full up and down movement from the sand to the water on the beach involved was
only around an inch of movement for the BMFL Spot heads, but covered over 60
metres to the water! He programmed a 100% movement speed to ensure this fine
movement was absolutely smooth!
They also took the opportunity of testing the BMFLs on the set up night while they
were in position – the furthest being onto a building 500 metres down the beach …
With the gobo that big at the top of the building … it was clearly visible from over 1
km away.
The two DL4X Spots, also owned by TLD Services, were used to light the main 7
Gold Coast News event space on level 77 of Q1, with the full colour gobos appearing
in all their glory during the actual press launch on the observation deck. The visual
vibe of the space here was modern elegance, and with the DL4X Spots being LED
they ticked all the boxes including the one for expedient power consumption.
The 7 Gold Coast launch was a massive success and viewers in the locality now
have the choice of three different news bulletins at 5.30 p.m. as 7 Gold News
started airing on 4th July, broadcasting from a new purpose built studio in Surfers
Paradise presented by Rod Young.
